NEVERENDING EXCUSES

Five years ago (Nov. 2012) Conestoga Rovers and Chemtura along with their buddy the Ontario M.O.E. triumphantly announced their new groundwater remediation expansion plan. They claimed falsely that they and they alone had determined through computer modelling (or voodoo and tea leaves?) that in order to achieve the 2028 deadline for cleanup of the Elmira Aquifers that they were going to TRIPLE the volume of off-site groundwater pumping and treating AND they were going to use In Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO) in specific high concentration areas off-site. Personally I viewed this as a form of off-site source removal which was long overdue.

Well here we are five years later. The average Target pumping rates were in the area of 53 litres per second for ALL the off-site pumping wells namely W5A/B, W4, W3 and E7 at the south end of Elmira. Where are we today you ask? We seem to be averaging somewhere around 63-64 litres per second. Granted some of the wells have been relocated and pumping either increased or decreased. The result is the off-site wells pumping today are W5A/B, W4 (well for November at least), W3, W6A/B, W9 and finally E7.

We are advised in the November 2017 Progress Report that due to this Update and that Analysis that routine pumping at well W4 has now ceased. Are you kidding me? Where the hell are the two new wells W7 and W8 that we've been hearing about for five years now? Why the hell are you shutting pumping wells down? Why the hell do you think that we are so stupid that we think that 63 litres per second is triple the pumping rate of 53 litres per second? Oh right I forgot. Somewhere between November 2012 and now Chemtura changed their promise from a tripling to a doubling of the pumping rates. What a farce! Do you think that 63 is double 53? In what universe? Oh again silly me. Here in Ontario, under the supervision of the Ontario Ministry of Errors and Excuses and Corporate Collusion (MOECC); 63 is double 53.

What has become obvious to me is the following. Chemrura and CRA (Conestoga Rovers) never intended to triple or double anything. Part of the reason is that they don't have and never have had hydraulic containment on the former Uniroyal Chemical site as mandated in the November 4, 1991 M.O.E. Control Order. Not a problem! They surrepticiously Amended that Control Order on June 21, 2000 (Hal Kannif-director) and then spent the next four years trying to convince UPAC (Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee) that it would be a good idea to allow on-site flow to go off-site and be picked up there by pumping wells. They called this scam Optimization.

There never was a serious plan to either double or triple off-site pumping because within two years of starting off-site pumping (2000) they realized that they couldn't possibly maintain on-site containment while simultaneously pumping much larger quantities of groundwater off-site. Essentially on-site groundwater pumping would also need to be doubled or tripled to avoid groundwater flowing to the much lower off-site elevations. That would be too expensive when you realize that the far higher contaminant concentrations are on-site requiring much more expensive treatment.